In the 1970s medical researchers discovered that human umbilical cord blood contained the same kind of stem cells found in bone marrow. (Stem cells get their name from their ability to develop into three types of blood cells: red blood cells, while blood cells and platelets). Because stem cells from bone marrow had already been used successfully to treat patients with life-threatening blood diseases, such as leukemia and immune system disorders, researchers believed that they could also use stem cells from cord blood to save patients.
In 1988, doctors transplanted human umbilical cord blood into a 5-year old boy suffering from Fanconi's anemia. Ten years after the transplant, the boy is alive and seems to be cured of his disease. Based on this and other successful transplants, doctors and medical researchers began to collect, freeze and store cord blood units (CBUs) at cord banks throughout the world. As of October 1998, there were approximately 22,000 CBUs collected and frozen for use worldwide, and approximately 700 unrelated donor and 150 related (sibling) donor cord blood transplants had been performed.
Although today marrow transplants and cord blood transplants are often referred to by the same name -- stem cell transplants -- there are important differences between the two.